Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt wields his axe

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt opened his inaugural speech on the arts last week by quoting me as saying that I would "break his legs if he hurt the arts". My axe may be sharpened even sooner than I thought. On Monday, cuts were announced to organisations funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport – 3% across the board. Except, inexplicably, Arts Council England, which must absorb a 4% cut, picking up the extra percentage from its own reserves. That injunction – the extra 1% amounts to £5m – has baffled and angered ACE, and understandably so. It is rather like asking the Tate to draw from its savings to pay for running costs, and never good practice to break into the piggy bank in that way. ACE chair Liz Forgan has already made it clear that the cuts are likely to affect "frontline" arts.

Chancellor George Osborne's announcements this week pointed to further potential damage to British culture. Local authorities – a vital factor when it comes to supporting arts organisations – will take a big cut, with the Department for Communities and Local Government asked to save 7.4% of this year's budget. Even if Hunt has promised not to make culture a "soft target", the worry is that local authorities, stretched to their utmost, will. Potential casualties here could include instrumental tuition, which would be an appalling waste of recent efforts to rebuild music education after it was destroyed under Thatcher. All this is just a taste: the real, deep cuts will be announced in the spending review this autumn.